At 16:01 minutes long, I'm not sure if this can count as a "movie," but I'm still going to tout its awesomeness.
You've got your ax & chainsaw wielding yokels and some scared little trees (and honestly, the tree hugger in me died a little inside thinking of all the poor trees that died). I persevered and once it hit the 10 minute mark my demented soul cried out in joy.
Merry Christmas Dudes. Treevenge may be viewed here:
http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/09/beware-the-furious-foliage-its-jason-eiseners-treevenge.php
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002)
Hershel Gordon Lewis came out of directorial retirement after 30 years to make this sequel to his original opus. Was it worth the wait? Actually, I don’t know. I have the original in my Netflix queue, but this sequel was available for streaming so I watched this first. I had no problem keeping up.
Basically the story of the offspring of the original antagonist inherits a store that he rehabs and opens as a catering business. This inheritance came complete with a statue of the goddess Ishtar (no, not the Hoffman/Beatty crap pile) which compels him to slaughter the townsfolk and incorporate them into his dishes. The lion’s share of which are served to the guests at a wedding he caters at the end of the film. I know this sounds just like the plot to the Father of the Bride 2, but you are mistaken.
This movie did not have a huge budget, or any actors I have ever seen before or since. Not to say that this was bad. On the contrary, this had a plethora of elements a great HoPoTo movie should contain: excessive gore, an impressive body count, over the top and/or bad acting, gallows humor, bad puns, completely unnecessary (but not unwelcome) nudity, and stereotypes out the ying-yang (it’s a medical term).
Add to that a swinging rockabilly soundtrack provided by Southern Culture on the Skids and a perv-fect cameo with John Waters as a priest and you have a pretty good horror movie. Lewis didn’t aspire to any high art or try to make it into something it is not. He just did what he does (used to do) well: make a nasty, funny, campy, visceral horror movie. A great way to spend 90 minutes.
4 Georges
Basically the story of the offspring of the original antagonist inherits a store that he rehabs and opens as a catering business. This inheritance came complete with a statue of the goddess Ishtar (no, not the Hoffman/Beatty crap pile) which compels him to slaughter the townsfolk and incorporate them into his dishes. The lion’s share of which are served to the guests at a wedding he caters at the end of the film. I know this sounds just like the plot to the Father of the Bride 2, but you are mistaken.
This movie did not have a huge budget, or any actors I have ever seen before or since. Not to say that this was bad. On the contrary, this had a plethora of elements a great HoPoTo movie should contain: excessive gore, an impressive body count, over the top and/or bad acting, gallows humor, bad puns, completely unnecessary (but not unwelcome) nudity, and stereotypes out the ying-yang (it’s a medical term).
Add to that a swinging rockabilly soundtrack provided by Southern Culture on the Skids and a perv-fect cameo with John Waters as a priest and you have a pretty good horror movie. Lewis didn’t aspire to any high art or try to make it into something it is not. He just did what he does (used to do) well: make a nasty, funny, campy, visceral horror movie. A great way to spend 90 minutes.
4 Georges
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Gutterballs (2008)
Canada….the land of hockey, Maple syrup, poutine, snobby faux-French people, and…bowling-themed slasher movies! This verrrry independent horror pic from the great white north has very good high points, but just as many (if not more) low points.
The story centers around two rival bowling groups at the Excalibur bowling alley. In fact, aside from the proprietor of the lanes, there are no other people in the movie. So there are literally no other people in the movie for the story to center around. Zero other people bowl at this particular alley; I had no idea that bowling was so totally eclipsed by the popularity of hockey in Canada. This is either a sign of how low the budget was or a comment on how sparse the population is in America’s Hat ©.
Anyhoo, these rival ‘teams’ are bowling against each other in a league, I guess (a very small league). One group is 4 douchebags who act like stereotypical crotch-grabbing, braggadocio-infested frat heads and the other group is mostly women and a doughy transvestite (huh?). Well after some friction between the groups, the douchebags gang rape one of the women on the other team, unbeknownst to the rest of her group. The following night is their scheduled match, and the victim doesn’t say anything to her group. Well as luck would have it, the doors get locked and a killer disguised with a bowling ball bag over their head starts knocking off members of both teams, one by one (two-by-two in one case of mutually suffocation by 69 – a first as far as I know). The reveal at the end is way more complicated than necessary, but whatever.
The script was weak, the acting was hyperbolically terrible, and this was clearly a movie filmed over the course of several weeks at a bowling alley after it closed for the night, with NO extras. On the plus side were the pretty gory and well done deaths, and their keeping with the theme of ‘bowling’ in those forced expirations. There was even a part that made me cringe, where the transvestite gets, ahem, bifurcated. There was also ample nudity, although the movie does fall short of a Golden Treehorn.
The other standout detail of the movie which at first was annoying, then became hilarious was the absolute overpackedness of the script with the word ‘fuck’. It was like breathing if one were hyperventilating:
“Hey motherfucker, where’s my fucking beer?”
“I don’t fucking know, get it your fucking self!”
“Whose fucking turn is it to fucking roll?”
“Fuck if I know!”
I would love to see this movie dubbed for television.
So with all that added up, it was a pretty bad movie, but with good effects and skin, and the most egregious use of the word ‘Fuck’. As if the scripts of Deadwood and The Big Lebowski has a baby with Tourette’s. With some non-Euclidiean math, that equals 3 Georges.
The story centers around two rival bowling groups at the Excalibur bowling alley. In fact, aside from the proprietor of the lanes, there are no other people in the movie. So there are literally no other people in the movie for the story to center around. Zero other people bowl at this particular alley; I had no idea that bowling was so totally eclipsed by the popularity of hockey in Canada. This is either a sign of how low the budget was or a comment on how sparse the population is in America’s Hat ©.
Anyhoo, these rival ‘teams’ are bowling against each other in a league, I guess (a very small league). One group is 4 douchebags who act like stereotypical crotch-grabbing, braggadocio-infested frat heads and the other group is mostly women and a doughy transvestite (huh?). Well after some friction between the groups, the douchebags gang rape one of the women on the other team, unbeknownst to the rest of her group. The following night is their scheduled match, and the victim doesn’t say anything to her group. Well as luck would have it, the doors get locked and a killer disguised with a bowling ball bag over their head starts knocking off members of both teams, one by one (two-by-two in one case of mutually suffocation by 69 – a first as far as I know). The reveal at the end is way more complicated than necessary, but whatever.
The script was weak, the acting was hyperbolically terrible, and this was clearly a movie filmed over the course of several weeks at a bowling alley after it closed for the night, with NO extras. On the plus side were the pretty gory and well done deaths, and their keeping with the theme of ‘bowling’ in those forced expirations. There was even a part that made me cringe, where the transvestite gets, ahem, bifurcated. There was also ample nudity, although the movie does fall short of a Golden Treehorn.
The other standout detail of the movie which at first was annoying, then became hilarious was the absolute overpackedness of the script with the word ‘fuck’. It was like breathing if one were hyperventilating:
“Hey motherfucker, where’s my fucking beer?”
“I don’t fucking know, get it your fucking self!”
“Whose fucking turn is it to fucking roll?”
“Fuck if I know!”
I would love to see this movie dubbed for television.
So with all that added up, it was a pretty bad movie, but with good effects and skin, and the most egregious use of the word ‘Fuck’. As if the scripts of Deadwood and The Big Lebowski has a baby with Tourette’s. With some non-Euclidiean math, that equals 3 Georges.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Maude's View on The Vampire Lovers
I've never been much on the classic "Frankenstein Meets the Werewolf" type movies, and therefore, I resisted Hammer Films. But one night I agreed to watch The Vampire Lovers. It was a choice born of desperation. Either that, or something like The Screaming Skull. Imagine my pleased surprise when it turned out that The Vampire Lovers was a genuinely entertaining film.
As we watched the film, I remembered how much I hated Sundays when I was young. Everyone of a certain age who was enslaved to network television knows how shitty Sunday TV is for kids. Sundays were for televised sports (and Kung Fu). But...occasionally, I'd luck out and come across some gem like Sinbad the Sailor or Godzilla or...70s vampire movies! I loved the costumes, the "period" ladies with their back-combed hair, thick eyeliner, fake eyelashes, the thinly veiled sexual innuendo, the heavy handed atmosphere, and of course the vampires. To this day, vampires are my favorite monsters. Because of those movies. Which turned out to be Hammer Films!
It's funny how we take for granted certain screen cliches that are done today as a joke, but at some point in film history were meant in earnest. For example: in Vampire Lovers, the butler visits the local pub. Peasant types all around are carousing, swilling beer, pinching the barmaids. A musician is treating the guests to Oktoberfest style accordion music. During a conversation with the owner, the butler mentions the word "vampire" and suddenly all conversation halts with a
SCREECH of the accordion! And that's a valid source of enjoyment while watching this movie. It's the best kind of camp: the earnest B movie. Forget all the "tongue in cheek" movies today that are so sly and referential. This is the real stuff. Watch actors "ride" horses in front of a screen as their hair blows artfully in the "wind"...see fog machines gone wild...hear ladies compete for the Scream Queen title! It's all here in abundance.
From what I understand, the story for The Vampire Lovers (1970) was taken from Carmilla, a vampire story that predates Dracula. It's been remade many times. Ah yes - but how many of them had such great Breck Girl hair? Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) is a sexy young woman left in the care of the Morton residence who develops a "friendship" with the younger, vivacious Emma (Madeline Smith). At least, I assume that we're supposed to interpret her psychotic bug-eyed giggles as signs of vivaciousness. Carmilla's intention to prey on Emma until her death is marred by her growing attachment to Emma. In the end, of course, the damsel in distress is saved by a team of do-good men who protect Emma with garlic and crosses while they search for Carmilla's grave and stake her. This is all pretty standard for a vampire flick. But what's not standard is the distinct lesbian bent to the story. Apparently, film censors wanted the more overt scenes removed but Hammer insisted that the lesbianism was not a modern addition, but from the original source material, a novel called Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Right on!
More trivia: the character of Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula was modeled after that of Emma from Carmilla. Seeing Francis Ford Coppola's film version, one can readily agree with that. Both are redheaded, ditzy, and both are just a little willing to sample a few Shrub Scout cookies. Also, The Vampire Lovers is the first (and best) of Hammer's Karnstein Trilogy. The other two are Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1972).
[Editor's note: Maude began this review on 6/16/07 - thanks for finishing it!!!]
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Vampire Ecstacy
Luv me some sexay vampire movies, and this film is a fine, fine example from the early 70’s, when skinsploitation had crept into most genres. This one involves a group of 4 or 5 naïfs visiting a castle in the back hills of Germany. The castle is run by a satanic priestess or somesuch (Wanda) who is trying to pave the way for the return of a powerful Baroness vampire. This involves a lot of mind control. Much of this mind control is achieved through nekkid/body painted ritual dancing by Wanda and her coven in the basement to the tune of the devilbongos. There is a LOT of this. This is a good thing. This movie gets special recognition for the most suggestively shaped candles in a non-porn movie.
This movie had great atmosphere, the castle setting really delivered the goods (in more ways than one), even though the movie really held no scares or even much blood. Several of the darker shots in the movie are a little too dark, making some of those scenes an audio-only affair, such as the bat attack. The good news is the bat attack denuded the remaining clothed woman, thus earning the movie the much lauded Golden Treehorn. Speaking of nekkidity, the lead naïf, Marie Forsa, has her ample ‘talents’ on display for one reason or another throughout the film. She is the initial target of the coven, her virgin body to be used a vessel for the return of the Vampiress. Well they eventually have to find a new vessel, because……well don’t let me ruin it. I will just say it is worth a watch if you like horror movies with great ambiance and gobs of eye candy, the flavor that the 70’s brought us in many of the horror/exploitation films from that period.
3 Georges and a Golden Treehorn
This movie had great atmosphere, the castle setting really delivered the goods (in more ways than one), even though the movie really held no scares or even much blood. Several of the darker shots in the movie are a little too dark, making some of those scenes an audio-only affair, such as the bat attack. The good news is the bat attack denuded the remaining clothed woman, thus earning the movie the much lauded Golden Treehorn. Speaking of nekkidity, the lead naïf, Marie Forsa, has her ample ‘talents’ on display for one reason or another throughout the film. She is the initial target of the coven, her virgin body to be used a vessel for the return of the Vampiress. Well they eventually have to find a new vessel, because……well don’t let me ruin it. I will just say it is worth a watch if you like horror movies with great ambiance and gobs of eye candy, the flavor that the 70’s brought us in many of the horror/exploitation films from that period.
3 Georges and a Golden Treehorn
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
If you are having a horror moviethon with a group of fellow enthusiasts or just need to 'clear the decks' after watching a poor horror movie, then pop a Troma movie into your DVD player. It really serves as a great mental palate cleanser. Well, cleanse is not an appropriate word, as there is nothing 'clean' about this movie. Troma really has cornered the market on funny/gross/tastless/outlandish/sometimes horrifiying content in their movies and their latest feature really serves as another solid example of this in their canon.
It involves a fastfood chicken franchise built on sacred burial ground and the resultant wave of chicken/hominid zombies which wages a very messy assault on the employees therein. It comes packed to the gills with buckets of blood/fluid splatters, piles of dismembered limbs, reams of crude jokes and gags, and handfuls of bared breasts. It never terrifies, as Troma is never one to take themselves too seriously. Per their norm, they are too busy trying to get to the next sight gag, deluge of blood, or shot of gratuitous nudity - often some delightful combination thereof. The acting is amateur at best, budget is obviously low, and again these are known factors when sitting down to watch a Troma feature. The new aspect that Troma reveals with this movie is several musical numbers. Now I know what you might be saying, "Karl, Fuck that shit, I hate musicals!" or possibly just wretching uncontrollably at the mere mention of the word. Well, there are only a few songs, and they are suitably crude and funny, per Troma's gutter levels of taste. I actually enjoyed them.
I know! It seems like crazy talk, but I speak the truth.
So with all the given pros and cons that Troma brings to the table, this one rates a solid 3 Georges.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Poultrygeist (2006)
Lloyd Kaufman is nothing if not consistent. I wouldn't quite go so far to say that if you've seen one Troma movie blah, blah, blah. But you can count on either Awful or Awesome, depending on your personal proclivities.
Poultrygeist is, as to be expected, both. In their trademark Troma Independent "Reel Cinema" manner they've inflicted multiple stab wounds into all of the current pop culture illusions, foibles, and just plain fuck-ups. In short order, this fast-food flesh-filled feast of a flick will have you laughing in the mirror of:
- Fast Food Culture
- College
- Empty Causes
- Lipstick Lesbians
- Patriotism
- Muslims
- Vegan Whores
- Black Pride
- Crass Capitalism
- Marketing
- Fetisism
- Musicals
- Hollywood
- Obesity
- Terrorism
Is it horror? Does it scare you, gross you out, make you feel vulnerable or just plain creepy? Are there breasts and killers and things you generally wouldn't plan to view in front of your mother?
The answer to all of these is yes... but with a serious caveat. Troma cinema has always leaned closer to comedy and exploitation than the conventional trappings of the horror film. Each film has been more overt in its social commentary than the last one. There aren't moody scores or carefully lit sets to emphasize the mystery of the creature lurking in the dark. Nope, it's Tromaville. Welcome to fast-talking topless female lead characters and buckets of goo spewing from the mouths of roomfuls of extras and splattered across the walls of brightly lit sets with chicken people and Joe Fleishaker. It's horror, but somehow not horror.
In any event, George has just thrown up three gooey chicken eggs. Bock bock bock. This must mean:
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